January 8, 2026
Thursday after Epiphany
Lectionary: 215
Reading
I
Beloved, we love
God because
he first loved us.
If anyone says, “I love God,”
but hates his brother, he is a liar;
for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen
cannot love God whom he has not seen.
This is the commandment we have from him:
Whoever loves God must also love his brother.
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ is begotten by God,
and everyone who loves the Father
loves also the one begotten by him.
In this way we know that we love the children of God
when we love God and obey his commandments.
For the love of God is this,
that we keep his commandments.
And his commandments are not burdensome,
for whoever is begotten by God conquers the world.
And the victory that conquers the world is our faith.
Responsorial
Psalm
R. (see
11) Lord, every nation on earth will adore you.
O God, with your judgment endow the king,
and
with your justice, the king’s son;
He shall govern your people with justice
and
your afflicted ones with judgment.
R. Lord, every nation on
earth will adore you.
From fraud and violence he shall redeem them,
and
precious shall their blood be in his sight.
May they be prayed for continually;
day by
day shall they bless him.
R. Lord, every nation on
earth will adore you.
May his name be blessed forever;
as long
as the sun his name shall remain.
In him shall all the tribes of the earth be blessed;
all the
nations shall proclaim his happiness.
R. Lord, every nation on
earth will adore you.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia,
alleluia.
The Lord has sent me to bring glad tidings to the poor
and to proclaim liberty to captives.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
Jesus returned to
Galilee in the power of the Spirit,
and news of him spread throughout the whole region.
He taught in their synagogues and was praised by all.
He came to Nazareth, where he had grown up,
and went according to his custom
into the synagogue on the sabbath day.
He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah.
He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written:
The
Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because
he has anointed me
to
bring glad tidings to the poor.
He
has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives
and
recovery of sight to the blind,
to
let the oppressed go free,
and
to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.
Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down,
and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him.
He said to them,
“Today this Scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”
And all spoke highly of him
and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/010826.cfm
Commentary on 1 John
4:19—5:4
Once again John emphasises the inseparable link between
loving God and loving our sisters and brothers. We are to love because God
loves first. Because of his love, the only response we can give is to return
his love and pass it on. God’s love for us does not depend on our first loving
him. Our love is always a response; it is never our initiative. But then our
love for God is primarily shown by our loving those around us. John writes:
Those who say, “I love God,” and hate a brother or sister
are liars, for those who do not love a brother or sister, whom they have seen,
cannot love God, whom they have not seen.
It is so easy to love an invisible God. But it can be very
difficult at times to love a very visible sister or brother. It is so easy to
appear pious, devotional, even ‘holy’, spending long hours in front of Jesus in
the tabernacle and in other religious activities, and yet living in very poor
relationships with certain people.
The Letter puts it very simply:
…those who love God must love their brothers and sisters
also.
John puts it another way by saying:
Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been
born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child.
At the time this Letter was written, families were very
closely-knit units under the headship of a father. So, in the same way, anyone
who loves God our Father will naturally love all God’s children who are, of
course, in a very real way our brothers and sisters. We must love every single
child to whom our loving God has given life. I cannot refuse to love someone
that God loves and for whom he sent his Son to die on a cross.
Again he repeats what he has already said:
By this we know that we love the children of God, when we
love God and obey his commandments.
We love God by keeping his commandments, and earlier he has
made it clear what those commandments are:
that we should
believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ [a call for total
commitment and surrender to the Way of the Gospel];
that we should
love one another.
And these commands are not burdensome. This is not because
they are always easy to carry out fully, but because we live in the strength of
the Spirit and because they are in total conformity with our nature made in the
likeness of God. There is nothing artificial or arbitrary about them. To
observe them is to become more and more what we are meant to be—living in the
image of our Creator God. The reading concludes:
And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is
born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the
world, our faith.
It is by doing this that we will “conquer” the world of sin
and of self-centred greed and hate. It is only this faith and love which can
bring healing and wholeness into people’s lives.
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Commentary on Luke
4:14-22
After his baptism, Jesus is full of the Spirit of God. He
has been commissioned and is now ready to do his Father’s work. The Gospel says
he has been in Galilee already for some time, and people everywhere are hearing
about him as he preaches in synagogues. Today we see him in his home town of
Nazareth. And, as he usually did, he went to the synagogue there on a Sabbath.
As was the right of any Jew, he read from the Scripture. The
passage is from the prophet Isaiah (61:1-2). It is a messianic prophecy which
he applies to himself:
Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.
And what is it that he read?
The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me…
That is, the Lord God has made him King and Lord. He has
been made Messiah (Hebrew)—meaning “the Anointed One”. In
Greek it is Christos. This is a formal announcement of his
identity. (Compare this to Mark’s Gospel where Jesus hides his true identity
until much later.)
And what is the mission of Jesus as Messiah?
…to bring good news to the poor.
…to proclaim release to the captives
and recovery of sight to the blind,
to set free those who are oppressed,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
More than any of the other Gospels, Luke emphasises Jesus’
attitude to the economically and socially poor. We see that at Jesus’ first
appearance in the world, when it is the poor and outcasts—the shepherds—who come
to pay homage to the newborn child. The poor are also linked to the oppressed
and afflicted, the forgotten and the neglected. Yet it is they who are most
open to the Good News—so much so that the poor are described as “blessed”.
Jesus gives a message of liberation and freedom for the
world. It is important for us to realise that Jesus came to make us truly free.
So many Christians abandon their church in order to be ‘free’. They find being
Christian a stifling experience. Yet, we must insist both by the way we present
the message of the gospel and by the way we live it that, as Christians, we
enjoy a particularly high level of freedom. True freedom does not consist in
doing just what we feel like doing—that can be very destructive both to
ourselves and others. True freedom is the ability to make the good choice—good
for oneself and good for others. Agape-love points
us in that direction.
The words of Isaiah that Jesus uses are to be taken both in
their literal and in a fuller sense. It is a message for those who are
materially poor, for those who are in prison, those who are blind and those who
are oppressed. But all these terms can be understood in a much wider sense.
There are all kinds of poverty. In addition to the material kind, there is
intellectual, emotional and social poverty. There are all kinds of things which
imprison people, including various forms of addictions and compulsions.
Blindness is not only a physical disability, but there are other forms of
blindness due to ignorance, prejudice and a lack of true vision in life. There
are many ways a person can experience oppression. People can feel oppressed by
forces which dominate their lives, like an obsession with materialistic values
and consumerism, or driving ambition at the expense of others. It is for each
one to look into their own lives and see where they need liberation most.
These words of Jesus can be seen as his ‘mission statement’.
It is what his whole life will be based on. It is not primarily a religious
manifesto. It is a manifesto for the kind of life that every human being is
called to follow.
Jesus only began this work. Its continuation and fulfilment
depends on our cooperation with him. We are not to hear these words only as
receivers, but also as a challenge to us. To what extent am I part of this
empowering, liberating, eye-opening mission of Jesus for my society and the
world?
The people in the synagogue are deeply impressed by the
words of Jesus, but they are also amazed and say:
Is this not Joseph’s son?
Very soon they would turn against him because they presumed
they knew who he was, but they did not. They had grown up with him and were too
close to him—a matter of familiarity breeding contempt. The same can happen to
us when, as happens again and again, we cannot detect the presence of Christ in
a person who is very close to us. Not only can we not see Christ in that
person, like the people of Nazareth, we often do not want to.
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https://livingspace.sacredspace.ie/c0110g/
Thursday, January 8, 2026
Christmas Time
Opening prayer
God our Father, through Christ
your Son the hope of eternal life dawned on our world.
Give to us the light of faith that we may
always acknowledge him as our Redeemer and come to the glory of his kingdom,
where he lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and
ever. Amen.
Gospel Reading - Luke 4: 14-22a
Jesus, with the power of the Spirit in him,
returned to Galilee; and his reputation spread throughout the countryside. He
taught in their synagogues, and everyone glorified him. He came to Nazareth,
where he had been brought up, and went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day as
he usually did. He stood up to read, and they handed him the scroll of the
prophet Isaiah. Unrolling the scroll, he found the place where it is written:
The spirit of the Lord is on me, for he has anointed me to bring the good news
to the afflicted. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives, sight to the
blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim a year of favor from the Lord.
He then rolled up the scroll, gave
it back to the assistant and sat down. And all eyes in the synagogue were fixed
on him.
Then he began to speak to them,
'This text is being fulfilled today even while you are listening.'
And he won the approval of all, and they were astonished by
the gracious words that came from his lips.
Reflection
•
Animated by the Spirit, Jesus returns toward
Galilee and begins to announce the Good News of the Kingdom of God. Being in
the community and teaching in the Synagogues, he reaches Nazareth, where he
grew up. He was returning to the community, where, since he was small, had
participated in the celebration during thirty years. The following Saturday,
according to his custom, he went to the Synagogue to be with the people and to
participate in the celebrations.
•
Jesus rises to go to read. He chooses a text
from Isaiah which speaks about the poor, of the prisoners, of the blind and the
oppressed. The text reflects the situation of the people of Galilee, in the
time of Jesus. In the name of God, Jesus takes a stand to defend the life of
his people, and with the words of Isaiah, he defines his mission: to proclaim
the Good News to the poor, to proclaim freedom to the prisoners, to restore sight
to the blind, and freedom to the oppressed. Going back to the ancient tradition
of the prophets, he proclaims: “a year of grace of the Lord.” He proclaims a
jubilee year. Jesus wants to reconstruct the community, the clan in such a way
that once again it may be the expression of their faith in God! And then, if
God is Father/Mother of all we should all be brothers and sisters of one
another.
•
In ancient Israel, the great family, the clan or
the community, was the basis of social living together. It was the protection
of the families and of the persons, the guarantee of the possession of the
land, the principal channel of tradition and of the defense of the people. It
was a concrete way of embodying the love of God in the love for neighbor. To
defend the clan, the community, was the same as defending the Covenant with
God. In Galilee at the time of Jesus, there was a two-fold segregation, that of
the politics of Herod Antipas (4 BC to 39 AD) and the segregation of the
official religion. And this because of the system of exploitation and of
repression of the politics of Herod Antipas supported by the Roman Empire. Many
people were homeless, excluded and without work (Lk 14: 21; Mt 20: 3.5-6). The
result was that the clan, the community, was weakened. The families and the
persons remained without any help, without any defense. And the official
religion maintained by the religious authorities of the time, instead of
strengthening the community, in a way in which it could receive and accept the
excluded, strengthened this segregation even more. The Law of God was used to
legitimize the exclusion of many people: women, children, Samaritans,
foreigners, lepers, possessed, Publicans, sick, mutilated, paraplegic. It was
all the contrary of the Fraternity which God had dreamt for all! And this was
the political and economic situation, as well as the religious ideology,
everything conspired to weaken the local community more and hinder, in this
way, the manifestation of the Kingdom of God. Jesus‟
program, based on the prophecy of Isaiah, offered an alternative.
•
After finishing the reading, Jesus updated the
text applying it to the life of the people, saying: “Today, this reading, which
you have heard with your own ears, has been fulfilled!” His way of joining the
Bible with the life of the people, produced a two-fold reaction. Some remained
surprised, amazed, and admired. Others had a negative reaction. Some were
scandalized and wanted to have nothing more to do with him. They said: “Is he
not the son of Joseph?” (Lk 4: 22). Why were they scandalized? Because Jesus
says to accept and receive the poor, the blind, the oppressed. But they did not
accept his proposal. And thus, when he presented his project to accept the
excluded, he himself was excluded!
Personal Questions
•
Jesus joined the faith in God with the social
situation of his people. And I, how do I live my faith in God?
•
Where I live, are there any blind, prisoners,
oppressed? What do I do?
Concluding Prayer
May his name be blessed forever, and endure in the sight of
the sun.
In him shall be blessed every race in the world, and all
nations call him blessed. (Ps 72: 17)
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